Students Protest JAMB’s Cut Off Marks at UNILAG

A peaceful protest on Wednesday marred the commencement of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) registration for the 2015/2016 session screening of candidates for the JAMB’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.

However, the Registrar of UNILAG, Taiwo Ipaye, said that only 9,000 out of the 32,000 candidates that applied for admission into the university were eligible for screening.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the parents of the candidates, who brought their children to the campus for the exercise, expressed their disappointments over their children’s exclusion from JAMB’s list of shortlisted candidates.

Ben Emone, a medical practitioner and parent, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that his son made UNILAG his first choice, and scored 260 marks in the UTME.

According to him, it has been the tradition of the university to peg its cut-off mark, at least, at 200 for the post UTME.

Emone expressed dissatisfaction at whatever reasons both the university and JAMB were posting for the sudden change in procedure.

“I will not take this whole thing they are trying to explain because my son passed the UTME convincingly. If there was to be any change, we should have been sensitised well ahead of time, and not just waking-up one morning to change the rule of the game. All I am saying is that my son must write this Post UTME or nobody will,’’ he said.

Sodunke Oludotun, the National President, Association of Tutorial School Operators, blamed the crisis on the Registrar of JAMB, Dibu Ojerinde.

He alleged that Ojerinde was insensitive to the plights of parents.

Oludotun said that the JAMB registrar was wrong to have introduced such last minute decision after he had announced to the public that the cut-off mark for admissions into the universities was 180.

He said that the issues would have turned out differently if the registrar had gone an extra mile, to carry the general public along, in board’s policy making.

“I think Prof. Ojerinde has some questions to answer on this whole issue. There must be something he is not telling the public. Ojerinde must stop running JAMB as if it is his personal business empire. How can Ojerinde impose such high and unacceptable cutoff marks for five notable public universities in Nigeria under the guise of catchment, to qualify for post UTME, and you expect us not to protest.

The worst case scenario at least ought to have been the normal 200 marks and above, which universities like UNILAG and others were known for.

If there must be anything new, it should be introduced next year after due consultations with all critical stakeholders, and get the public adequately sensitised.

For now, all we want is for all the candidates the cut-off mark of 200 and above to be allowed to sit for the post UTME or we go to court,’’ he said.

However, UNILAG’s Registrar, Taiwo Ipaye, said that only 9,000 out of the 32,000 candidates that applied for admission into the university were eligible for screening.

Ipaye said that JAMB considered a lot of options at its 2015 Combined Policy Meeting held on July 4, as a way out for the candidates.

“JAMB had during that meeting adopted a policy whereby candidates of universities with surplus applicants for the UTME are reassigned to other universities with lower number of candidates, than their capacities. This will be beneficial to needy universities; as this will ensure that they will have more candidates to admit.

This policy has been implemented with immediate effect and consequently, the eligibility for Post- UTME screening in the University of Lagos like other universities in country, has been determined by JAMB. In effect, only candidates, whose names were forwarded to the University of Lagos by JAMB, are eligible for the 2015/2016 post-UTME,’’ she said.

Also, JAMB’s Public Relations Officer, Fabian Benjamin, said that what the parents were agitating for was uncalled for.

According to him, universities are at liberty to go higher than 180, as cut off marks, based on their peculiarities.

He said, however, that whatever cut-off points they were adopting must be uniformly applied to all candidates.

“I do not see anything wrong with what UNILAG has done. This is because a time will come when some universities may have to peg their cut-off points at 300 marks, based on performance. Before we send candidates to the universities, we normally ensure that we know their carrying capacities; because we do not want a situation, whereby, they will present more than they can admit. There are private universities and other tertiary institutions that also need candidates, so, we try to distribute evenly,’’ he said.

The spokesman said that JAMB, in its magnanimity, had posted students that scored above 200 and above to private universities, to forestall them from staying at home for another year.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime.com

About NAN

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) was established by the Federal Government of Nigeria in May 1976 to gather and distribute news on Nigeria and cover events of interest to Nigeria at the international level for the benefit of the Nigerian Media and the Public.

News flash… EDUCATION IS SUPPOSED TO BE DIFFICULT!!!! If it was easy, how would you then cherish it? You are supposed to work your butt off to get into a good school, work your butt off to graduate and work your butt off when you get a job. All you lazy ass, social media zombie children of today. Mtsheeeewwww

whoever this Nahum is, you just talked like a fool. Social media what? Like ure typing on TV or u aint on facebook? Did u attend Harvard or Yale? Or u had 390 in jamb. The truth shd b d truth irrespective of circumstances. I feel for these young jamb candidates.

Jamb should please furnish us with the names and universities where these students are distributed to. This is necessary so that we can know how to direct our wards/children.. Thanks for your prompt reply

Guy cool ur blood. It will be right to say that these bodies are making education difficult. If a dude with 260 can’t partake in the post UTME exercise who should. Our educational system is quite bad and even the much acclaimed UNILAG where I finished from is getting worse by the day.. The protest is just and if settled in a court of law, I’d place my bet that JAMB would be found guilty.

@nahum or whatever you called yourself. It’s obvious you lack sense of reasoning. If not you won’t come up and type that nonsense. So because we want to be educated it should be difficult? Intelligent people should wait 5 years before they are admitted into the universities? That comment obviously show how self centered and foolish you are. And speaking of someone’s spelling, when you can’t actually think, that it’s learning that isn’t an easy thing.

Dude you are an airhead. Do you think you are better than the ineligible candidates?I am very sure 65% of the eligible ones cant even defend their score. Watch your mouth or else Karma will catch up with you.

i pray the same would happen to your child so u would feel the pain nobody is the same ,you don’t know the position or how hard some people worked…education is supposed to be agreeably competitive and available for all in a reasonable sense not stupidly unavailable they didn’t even try to say 200 or 230 its 250 mschhww anufia

Do not know why children find it hard to study this days. University need to maintain standard hence the rationale for increasing their cut off Mark. You do not need to to go to unilag, their are so many other low level university you can attend . Pls this is how to maintain standard. Same HAPPENS abroad . You can’t go to Oxford, Harvard or Cambridge with just ordinary Mark. Same applied to the best universty in Nigeria. Pls get over it

I understand your stand point and agree to an extent. However, in most universities abroad there is a minimum standard before you are accredited. This is not the case in Nigeria where you see soo many mediocre universities. Also, in the labor market the university you attend opens doors for you. Yes I know the same applies to universities abroad but believe me in Nigeria the discrimination is terrible. I know of some organisations that only consider students from a list of universities.

I’ll take it that you are in school or a postgraduate because if it were you, you wouldn’t utter a word. This isn’t about merit anymore its just how to reduce the population and the exam to cut-off suitable candidates from others is post-utme not utme. Why deny the candidates the right?

Well ain’t this a bi*ch,so you’re going to tell me my trip is canceled on my way to the airport? Or you are my doctor and you tell me I have cancer and I’m going to die on new year eve? Menh….this some old bullsht,you think if I could change the whole world in one day I won’t be dating Nikki and have Obama prepare egusi for us to eat in the white house?no seriously…. Bidemi or JIDE or what’s his name,you think you’re God or some sht? If you ragity sons of bihes want to turn naija to a survival of the fittest country,well the jokes on you be after going to dem so called universities some graduates don’t amount to sht,and still aint never gonna amount to sh**t,because dem jobs are still gonna be hard to find.Peace……well if there’ll be any.

Mr Nahum, U must be the most stupid of human beings . Can U tell us just how hard u worked off ur sorry godforsaken ass off and I mean if u were soooo ‘anti-social media’ how come u have so much time to publicly display ur legendary brainlessness and insensitivity on one. U had better cut off those destructive fingers if u do not know what to type. Jerk!

i think it is fair to say that JAMB cut off mark can be defined mathematically as number of applicants divided by vacancy in university multiplied by the exams degree of difficulty. lets look at a couple scenarios, if applicants r more than uni vacancies,then u can expect exams to be very tough and cut off high. the reverse would also be the case if applicants were fewer than available uni vacancies, then one can expect the cut-off to be lower. As we can clearly see statistically from the NORTH. though i acknowledge that exam difficulty has to be standardized for sake of fairness and neutrality!!

Regardless of the magnitude of any evil, there is always a degree of good in it, for the hopeless, there is always a fated future, and for the the hopeless, I’m indeed speechless, cut off mark or no cut off marks, education in Nigeria needs serious attention, if time is not taken, there will be an uprising perpetuated by negligence towards our ministry of education, I see this crisis dragging the nation’s beautiful name to a zero level

Please can someone tell me the criteria jamb is using to select their so called eligible student cos I score 242 in jamb to study accounting in unilag bt the fools there said I’m nt eligible while my friend that score 216 is eligible…..so Mr. Nhaum pls explain dat

Corruption and oppression follows everything in nigeria. Policies like this should have been stated before even writing the exam so that everybody knows what he or she has to do to be admitted. And why does the jamb pro keep mentioning private universities? How many people can afford it? Does he know how some people got the jamb form sef? And you’re pushing dem to schools that dey can’t afford. And they should tell us the criteria for selection bcos I don’t see why someone with 260 will not be eligible 4 unilag post utme and I’m sure some people with less than 250 will be eligible.

D explanation givenby unilag – they have more than enuff candidates that scored more than 250 so theres no way they can allow 180 cutt off by jamb to sit for post ume. Q.E.D o. f course we knw few ones with high connections will do in naija style.

What sort of stupid decison is dis….y on earth will u choose another school 4 a student without dere consent?are they ready to pay the skool fees of those who are sent to private skools?y making such decision @dis stage?I need an answer cos dis is really crazy

Nahum shut ur stupid mouth, was at unilag yesterday , u needed to see the devastation on people’s faces. I had 245 for pol sci but I was ineligible while a friend had 203 for mass comm and went ahead to register for post utme . So they should come out and say what dafuq is going on. I am a fatherless child with a trading mother, where in God’s green earth will my mother get the money to pay for private university.The least private uuniversity pays over 300k wen in a month my mom gets about 40k. The government of this country always and always put in policies that will affect the poor..I am in tears as I type, this is the 5th time I am writing jamb and not because I don’t pass but because I am always 1 Mark short of the post utme cut off and deres no money to pay politics to get in. The first time I wrote jamb, I went to uniben for my post utme but jamb took my name to benson Idahosa uni, on getting there we were asked to pay a huge sum. Imagine!!! Now this, after working so hard to pass jamb, buying unilag post utme pass question and studying like there’s no tomorrow u now come to take the choice of school out of my hands. It’s should be my choice that’s what it’s written on the jamb form. ….1st CHOICE …so frustrated. People rushing to cotonou Ghana even noun to school and yet u dont acknowledge dere results or certificate . We dat don’t hv Money to run away from this depressing country will still not be allowed to study ….I am tired oh

It’s not their fault when there children are studying abroad. Wicked and heartless men in authority. If at least this want to be imposed it should have been communicated well to the public. We practice democracy for crying out loud. this should not be so. We won’t take it NEVER NEVER NEVER!!!

I really love that,if that is the main idea…4 pple not to stay at home 4 next season due to number of population dat choose the school…if that is the reason it good…but the problem now is that. When and how can we know the school we were posted to….pls he should inform us early

if jamb officials feel it is ‘okay’ by them to enforce such policy,they should let we the students know the school we got posted into….there is no time…we the students need to know our fate….i wonder why they still say we are ‘the leaders of tomorrow’ because i hope our leaders now can live forever since they don’t want our generation to lead…God help us.

It’s just sad that our so called educationist at the helms of affair of our academic lives teach us what they can’t implement…in all honesty it is a good idea but the implementation is so wrong.No be today unilag dey deal with overcrowded students,its fhe post utme that seperates fhe wheat from the chaff.If jamb really wants to help they should help students that have failed this post utme get admisdion into ghis other schools. What other work do they do apart from conduct one exam in a year…abeg they should be useful n stop creating more misery

And who says we’re all internet crazed. Some of us work very hard. Why go to a university that lacks the basic facilities for effective learning? Comparing more developed countries to nigeria is extremely foolish. How many of our universities are up to international standards. The worst part of this issue is that some people who got higher scores are ineligible while some people with much lower scores are eligible. Myself as an example. I got 260+(medicine and surgery) and I am ineligible but my sister who got 224(Medicine and surgery) is eligible. WE WANT TO KNOW THE CRITERIA FOR ELIGIBILITY. Our efforts must not be in vain! Please share this message!

Most of our universities are substandard. What do you expect students to do. And it is extremely inhumane to select an ‘eligibility’ list without telling us the criteria with which it was picked. @mrnahum I see you took your education rather seriously. Where’s the private jet to show for it? I pray your kids never have to go through such dissapointment after studying so hard while some people pay a few thousands and get themselves remarkable results

@mrnahum yes, education should not come easy. Then why does the govt not encourage people that ‘work hard’. How many people are offered scholarships in this country? Why do they choose to frustrate the poor. If they want us to apply to ‘needy’ universities. Why are we only allowed to apply for one university? My faith is in God right now

Unilag has always been a school where tribalism and connection is more important than JAMB score. Are u all just knowing? Those persons who are defending this decision are those whose parents paid high amount of money and used their political/tribal/money connections to buy them admission into the university. If u like abuse me, na una sabi.

I remember those of my sec classmates who got admission back then, people who I know for a certainty cheat during exams in sec sch and even boast of the ‘special centers’ they went to, they got admission because they are yorubas and/or their parents knew so and so. Only one of them I knew deserved it because she was very brilliant, but even she admitted she had to use ‘connection’. A friend of mine (non-yoruba) had the highest score in the department he applied for in the first POST-UME held , but he wasn’t given admission! He had to go use ‘connection’ (a lecturer who was impressed by his score) to get into another department o.

Thank God I listened to my father’s advice and applied to the federal university in my catchment area, UNIBEN and got it at first trial WITHOUT BRIBING ANYBODY OR USING CONNECTION TO SO-AND-SO. Today I’m a graduate and I and most of my fellow classmates I know are doing very well in their various endeavors.

So if u want UNILAG at all cost, go and find ‘connection’ o. otherwise, go to the university in your catchment area, go to private university, go abroad for your university education (Ghana and Cotonou join) OR forget about a university education and learn a skill/trade that would put food on your table tomorrow and enable u take care of ur family. shikena

pls..its not a bad thing for unilag to raise it cutoff mark…all I’m saying is that we could have been well notified before even taking the jamb because I checked their website and their cutoff mark was still 200 before I took the jamb.. so they should please raise this law and let we the aspiring students of the 2015/2016 session move in and then they can start from scratch and tell everyone that their new cutoff mark is 250…pls..let them consider people they send to private universities.. would they help in paying their fees..we all know private universities for extravagance.. that is why we chose unilag ..a school with moderacy and class..pls let the law wait..pls

like seriously I know not what’s special about the school. everyone just want be in unilag. I almost had a change of institution. in a country where tribalism and corruption is a daily bread, I still can’t blame the mediocrity of dibu ojerinde. they are as stingy and merciless as their money. overwhelmed by the little power and authority they have. other children are to go through the pain of a lawless country while theirs dine and wine like prince and princesses. they’ve forgotten that for every action there’s always an equal and opposite reaction. God is not dead.

Seriously, they have to make the criteria for eligibility public, and they need to explain this School transfer situation to us clearly. I have an igbo friend, scored 297, he was ineligible. While my Yoruba cousin scored 266, and she was eligible. Although i was eligible , i feel extremely sad for those who were not. What do they mean too many students? I think they mean too many low class universities. Only 30 percent of the people who wrote jamb scored above 200. What if 50 percent passed? There is something very fishy going on, and except the people affected put their foot on the ground and refuse this annoying policy, they will get away with this Injustice.

I think jamb is doing the right thing. Some clever people are scoring 190,195, 198….200…. 220. Why those that dnt knw any thing are scoring 230, 240…….. How come? Let all the university use 180 to knw the qualified candidate. Lets support jamb in their new policy. 1s again thank to jamb and God bless u all.